Album: Elephant
Artist: The White Stripes
Born: Detroit, Michigan
Released: April 2003
Genre: Blues Rock
Seeing The White Stripes live in 2005 has to be one of my favourite Glastonbury experiences. At the end of a wonderful but exhausting Friday spent exploring the site and discovering new music, me and the (soon-to-be) wife shared a box of red wine and enjoyed the show. They were magnificent. I can't confess to being a fan of the band from the early days, in fact my first encounter with their music was 2001's White Blood Cells, itself a great record with tracks like Hotel Yorba, I Think I Smell A Rat and Fell In Love With A Girl. The latter's a perfect example of the garage punk intensity of the group's early sound, a trait the band shared with The Strokes, who were also inspired by garage rock. What was so exciting for me about The White Stripes, in addition to their music, was that they offered something genuinely fresh and original. Eccentric details like Jack White changing his name to Meg's surname after they got married, and the duo presenting themselves as brother & sister, enhanced the mystery. I've since found out that Meg White only started playing the drums after they got married in 1996, and that the simplicity of the group set-up helped to liberate Jack's creativity. By the time of the group's fourth LP, Elephant, Jack was at the top of his songwriting powers and the group were experimentally sonically far more than they had on previous releases.
While early records often contained covers of Delta blues legend, Son House, here all but two of the songs were written by Jack, including the hugely successful single, Seven Nation Army. A Top Ten hit in the UK, it features one of rock's great guitar riffs, but behind the bravado Jack is voicing unease at his growing fame and a desire to escape ("I'm going to Wichita / far from this opera forevermore / I'm gonna work the straw / make the sweat drip out of every pore"). There's also a reference to the "Queen of England" and, on the album's cover, Jack's sitting with Meg holding a cricket bat (which he apparently won after a poker game with Mick Jagger) -- along with the album's many mentions of cups of tea, you can't help getting the impression that Jack's a huge Anglophile. Elephant was recorded at Toe Rag Studios in Hackney, London, a favourite haunt of one of Jack's heroes, English poet and punk musician Billy Childish. The album mixes moment of stripped back blues intensity with quieter, introspective moments, like Meg singing In The Cold, Cold Night and Jack's performance of You've Got Her In Your Pocket. I also think the band's cover of Burt Bacharach's I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself is inspired. Highlights are numerous, but I love Ball & Biscuit, a song that Jack has performed live with Bob Dylan, which is followed on the record by the raucous Hardest Button To Button. The exuberant intensity of Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine is another memorable moment. 2002 wasn't a great year for the album, but my faith was completely and utterly restored by this record.
Seeing The White Stripes live in 2005 has to be one of my favourite Glastonbury experiences. At the end of a wonderful but exhausting Friday spent exploring the site and discovering new music, me and the (soon-to-be) wife shared a box of red wine and enjoyed the show. They were magnificent. I can't confess to being a fan of the band from the early days, in fact my first encounter with their music was 2001's White Blood Cells, itself a great record with tracks like Hotel Yorba, I Think I Smell A Rat and Fell In Love With A Girl. The latter's a perfect example of the garage punk intensity of the group's early sound, a trait the band shared with The Strokes, who were also inspired by garage rock. What was so exciting for me about The White Stripes, in addition to their music, was that they offered something genuinely fresh and original. Eccentric details like Jack White changing his name to Meg's surname after they got married, and the duo presenting themselves as brother & sister, enhanced the mystery. I've since found out that Meg White only started playing the drums after they got married in 1996, and that the simplicity of the group set-up helped to liberate Jack's creativity. By the time of the group's fourth LP, Elephant, Jack was at the top of his songwriting powers and the group were experimentally sonically far more than they had on previous releases.
While early records often contained covers of Delta blues legend, Son House, here all but two of the songs were written by Jack, including the hugely successful single, Seven Nation Army. A Top Ten hit in the UK, it features one of rock's great guitar riffs, but behind the bravado Jack is voicing unease at his growing fame and a desire to escape ("I'm going to Wichita / far from this opera forevermore / I'm gonna work the straw / make the sweat drip out of every pore"). There's also a reference to the "Queen of England" and, on the album's cover, Jack's sitting with Meg holding a cricket bat (which he apparently won after a poker game with Mick Jagger) -- along with the album's many mentions of cups of tea, you can't help getting the impression that Jack's a huge Anglophile. Elephant was recorded at Toe Rag Studios in Hackney, London, a favourite haunt of one of Jack's heroes, English poet and punk musician Billy Childish. The album mixes moment of stripped back blues intensity with quieter, introspective moments, like Meg singing In The Cold, Cold Night and Jack's performance of You've Got Her In Your Pocket. I also think the band's cover of Burt Bacharach's I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself is inspired. Highlights are numerous, but I love Ball & Biscuit, a song that Jack has performed live with Bob Dylan, which is followed on the record by the raucous Hardest Button To Button. The exuberant intensity of Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine is another memorable moment. 2002 wasn't a great year for the album, but my faith was completely and utterly restored by this record.
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